Occurrence of footrot in free-ranging Alpine ibex (Capra ibex) colonies in Switzerland.

Moore-Jones, Gaia; Dürr, Salome Esther; Willisch, Christian; Ryser-Degiorgis, Marie-Pierre (2021). Occurrence of footrot in free-ranging Alpine ibex (Capra ibex) colonies in Switzerland. Journal of wildlife diseases, 57(2), pp. 327-337. Wildlife Disease Association 10.7589/JWD-D-20-00050

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Footrot is a worldwide economically important, debilitating disease caused by Dichelobacter nodosus. In sheep (Ovis aries), it is characterized by lesions of varying severity, depending on the strain, whereas Alpine ibex (Capra ibex) seem to develop severe lesions, whatever the strain. Healthy carriers occur in livestock but are rare in wild ruminants. Using a triangulation approach (retrospective questionnaire survey, necropsy database screening, and pathogen prevalence estimation in selected ibex colonies with and without footrot), we aimed at evaluating the importance of footrot in the ibex population, identifying potential risk factors for disease occurrence in this species, and defining the epidemiological role of ibex. Our study revealed that footrot occurs throughout the entire ibex territory (34% of the Swiss ibex colonies affected) but only as a sporadic disease (mostly one case per disease event), although the situation differed among footrot-positive colonies because half of them had experienced outbreak recurrences. Risk factor analysis for the occurrence of footrot in ibex colonies suggested an absence of an effect of meteorologic conditions, region, contacts with sheep or cattle (known to be very common healthy carriers of D. nodosus) and existing local disease control program. We found a significant effect only of contacts with sheep having footrot. Pathogen prevalence was very low in all investigated colonies. In conclusion, our results support previous data suggesting that ibex are susceptible spillover hosts, likely infected mainly by sympatric sheep displaying clinical signs.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Clinical Research and Veterinary Public Health (DCR-VPH) > Veterinary Public Health Institute
05 Veterinary Medicine > Department of Infectious Diseases and Pathobiology (DIP) > Institute for Fish and Wildlife Health (FIWI)

UniBE Contributor:

Moore-Jones, Gaia Alessandra, Dürr, Salome Esther, Ryser, Marie Pierre

Subjects:

600 Technology > 610 Medicine & health
600 Technology > 630 Agriculture

ISSN:

0090-3558

Publisher:

Wildlife Disease Association

Language:

English

Submitter:

Pamela Schumacher

Date Deposited:

09 Aug 2021 14:40

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 15:52

Publisher DOI:

10.7589/JWD-D-20-00050

PubMed ID:

33822150

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Dichelobacter nodosus epidemiology footrot questionnaire survey triangulation approach wild Caprinae wildlife-livestock interface

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/157888

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/157888

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